is gsearch required?

First, I should say I'm new to java webapps. I've done a little bit of command line java development, but never touched the web side of things. All I'm trying to do is get a demo install of Fedora-Commons and Islandora running. Something that we can have several people testing. I'd use the VM image, but I'm not sure it can be imported into our VMWare sphere... In any case, I'd still need to know how to set it up myself if we decide to use it.

The instructions say this:

To take full advantage of the module you will need to enable the Fedora Resource Index in the Fedora config file. You should also have Fedora GSearch installed. Fedora GSearch includes Lucene and enables full text searching.

I can get fedora-commons installed, and working. At least I think it's working, I can use the admin interface... Still haven't figured out how to add a file to it though...

The problem is that when I install gsearch, suddenly all myserver:8080/fedora gives me is:

I followed the instructions in the help file that comes in the gsearch download. But it's not very clear to me how to test it to make sure I installed it correctly. /fedoragsearch/rest gives me a blank white page.

I installed Fedora 3.4.2 with it's bundled Tomcat. And gsearch is the latest available download.

So, what can I do to troubleshoot this? What info can I post here to help you guys help me?

Hi, David, it sounds like you're going through a bit of what we went
through here just a month or so ago. We elected to use the disk image from
the vbox demo, which worked fine in our campus VMWare infrastructure.
We're now attempting to set up "real" Fedora and Islandora instances, and
this has been much more of a challenge, after just running and tweaking
the vbox image. If you're not too far along on your demo, you might
consider going with the vbox disk image in Vmware. Just know that you'll
have to finish this configuration sometime in the future.

Fedora 3.4.2 seems like a good baseline, and after a few weeks of
tinkering with Fedora 3.5, I'm thinking that 3.4 is a better bet for us to
try launching with. Not that I'm looking forward to a migration in the
future, but setting up Islandora with Fedora 3.5 has proved much more
challenging than I had anticipated. The documentation for installing
Gsearch for Islandora is specific to an earlier version of Gsearch, which
works with Fedora 3.4, and while I've gotten quite a bit of help off-list
(it's much appreciated) I just don't feel very comfortable with my ability
to support Fedora 3.5, and all that entails.

That's a long-winded tangent, sorry. But, since you mentioned you're
trying the latest version of Gsearch, it's possible you have a version of
Gsearch that won't work with the version of Fedora you have installed.

But, really, I suspect that the original error you're reporting may be due
to a permissions/ownership problem. One place to check for a clue would be
in $FEDORA_HOME/tomcat/logs/catalina.out This is the main tomcat log file,
and many basic error messages (like permissions problems, missing files,
that kind of thing) will end up getting reported here.

"It is a well-known fact in any organization that, if you want a job done,
you should give it to someone who is already very busy." --Terry
Pratchett, Unseen Academicals
>><mailto:islandora%2Bunsubscribe@googlegroups.com>.

GSearch is required if you are planning to use search. You may install
Fedora / Islandora without GSearch but you will only be able to browse
objects.

GSearch 2.4.1 is working great with Fedora 3.4.2 for me. I would
recommend installation instruction for GSearch that can be found
inside of GSearch download package (doc/index.html). But installation
might be still challenging.

I will release GSearch 2.4.2 in the next couple of weeks, and I invite hints to improve the doc page, sent off-list to me by those of you, who as Serhiy find the installation challenging. Tell me, where you face the problems, please.